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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Young, Poor Parents -- 2. Becoming an Adult -- 3. Committing to a Relationship -- 4. Becoming a Parent -- 5. Family Expectations -- 6. Learning Skills -- 7. Relationship and Parenting Changes -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Appendix -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author

Social poverty comes from lacking high-quality, trustworthy, dependable relationships. This is distinct from the experience of financial poverty and has consequences for wellbeing. Without adequately recognizing the multidimensional nature of human needs, we cannot understand individuals' behavior and motivations, nor can we develop policies that successfully respond to their needs.

This study used the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,481) to test whether the association between marital quality and divorce is moderated by premarital cohabitation or nonmarital childbearing status. Prior research identified lower marital quality as a key explanation for why couples who cohabit or have children before marrying are more likely to divorce than other couples. Using event history and fixed‐effects models, we found that the effect of marital quality on divorce is similar for cohabitors and noncohabitors, with cohabitors more likely to end both high‐ and low‐quality marriages. In contrast, the relationship between marital quality and divorce is weaker for women with nonmarital births; they are less likely than others to dissolve low‐quality marriages. We discuss how commitment norms and self‐efficacy might explain these differences in the association between marital quality and divorce.

AbstractPolicy feedback scholars argue that experiences with government shape political participation. Administrative burden scholars posit that burdensome bureaucratic encounters deter political participation. Related quantitative studies take a top‐down, deductive approach and test effects of single policies, yet people engage multiple programs, and all policies may not be equally salient in how they view the state. Using qualitative interviews, our inductive, "bottom‐up" approach examines the most prominent policy domains in views of government shared across mothers with low incomes in the United States (n = 80). Mothers experienced a wide range of policies, and they detailed related administrative burdens, but this was not the focus in most of their views of the government. Many raised issue areas that hit close to home, such as affordable child care or children's recreation programs. They often drew on a sense of collective motherhood in their view of government, including how it could facilitate efforts to raise children.

"The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time--a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months' wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It's Not Like I'm Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life"--Provided by publisher

How the EITC supports working families without imposing stigma.

AbstractJail incarceration substantially transforms romantic relationships, and incarceration may alter the commitment between partners, thereby undermining or strengthening relationships. In this article, we use in‐depth interviews with 85 women connected to incarcerated men (as current or former romantic partners) to explore how women articulate relationship changes that stem from their partner's jail incarceration, a common but understudied form of contact with the criminal legal system. We identify three interrelated and mutually reinforcing processes, which are shaped by and shape a partner's commitment to the relationship. First, incarceration produces liminality in the status of the relationship. Second, incarceration fosters women's sense of independence from their incarcerated partners. Third, incarceration creates space for partners to reevaluate how they prioritize the relationship in their lives. Jail incarceration intervenes in romantic relationships at different points during each relationship, and accordingly, women experience heterogeneity in processes of liminality, independence, and reprioritization. These processes contribute to differential relationship experiences, with some relationships deteriorating during incarceration, others strengthening, and others neither deteriorating nor strengthening. By systematically uncovering these processes linking jail incarceration to romantic relationships, we advance an understanding of how the criminal legal system can shape relationship commitment processes and inequalities among families.

AbstractRecently, U.S. advocates and funders have supported direct cash transfers for individuals and families as an efficient, immediate, and non‐paternalistic path to poverty alleviation. Open questions remain, however, about their implementation. We address these using data from debit card transactions, customer service call‐line logs, and in‐depth interviews from a randomized control study of a monthly unconditional cash gift delivered via debit card to mothers of young children living near the federal poverty line. Because much of the impact of the intervention occurs through mothers' decisions about how to allocate the Baby's First Years (BFY) money, we argue that implementation science must recognize the role of policy targets in implementing policy, not just in terms of policy outcomes but also policy implementation processes. Further, our analysis shows that mothers experience key aspects of the cash intervention's design as intended: they viewed the cash gift as unconditional and knew the money was reliable and would continue monthly, receiving the correct amount with few incidents. Delivering funds via debit card worked well, offering mothers flexibility in purchasing. We also illuminate how design features shaped mothers' experiences. First, although they knew it was unconditional, the social meaning of the BFY money to mothers—seen as "the baby's money"—shaped their engagement with and allocation of it. Second, low public visibility of mothers' receipt of this money limited the financial demands or requests from others, potentially facilitating more agency over and a greater ability to use the money as they chose, without claims from kin.

BackgroundPolicy debates over anti-poverty programs are often marked by pernicious stereotypes suggesting that direct cash transfers to people residing in poverty encourage health-risking behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and other substance use. Causal evidence on this issue is limited in the U.S. Given the prominent role of child allowances and other forms of cash assistance in the 2021 American Rescue Plan and proposed Build Back Better legislation, evidence on the extent to which a monthly unconditional cash gift changes substance use patterns among low-income mothers with infants warrants attention, particularly in the context of economic supports that can help improve early environments of children.MethodWe employ a multi-site, parallel-group, randomized control trial in which 1,000 low-income mothers in the U.S. with newborns were recruited from hospitals shortly after the infant's birth and randomly assigned to receive either a substantial ($333) or a nominal ($20) monthly cash gift during the early years of the infant's life. We estimate the effect of the unconditional cash transfer on self-report measures of maternal substance use (i.e., alcohol, cigarette, or opioid use) and household expenditures on alcohol and cigarettes after one year of cash gifts.ResultsThe cash gift difference of $313 per month had small and statistically nonsignificant impacts on group differences in maternal reports of substance use and household expenditures on alcohol or cigarettes. Effect sizes ranged between - 0.067 standard deviations and + 0.072 standard deviations. The estimated share of the $313 group difference spent on alcohol and tobacco was less than 1%.ConclusionsOur randomized control trial of monthly cash gifts to mothers with newborn infants finds that a cash gift difference of $313 per month did not significantly change maternal use of alcohol, cigarettes, or opioids or household expenditures on alcohol or cigarettes. Although the structure of our cash gifts differs somewhat from that of a ...